Linux advocate disguised as panhandler gives CDs away. Interesting social results: most people don't read signs, and panhandling is fairly lucrative. <wry grin>

Would be tempted to do something similar if I also had a stack of Ubuntu CDs.

Or—evil thought!—sneak into Microsoft dev event with button that
reads “Ask me about what I geek out about” and a bag full of Ubuntu CDs… ;)

(Convert the world one geek at a time! ;) )

It's great to know that I'm not the only one who thinks loving one's
country isn't passe. From a chat with
Jijo:

 Hey Sacha! How are things in Canada? I just read your
              entry on coming back home to the Philippines. Very very
              very positive attitude! If more progressive people like
              you (and me!) thought more about what we can do for this
              country than merely what it can do for us, I'm sure it
              wouldn't be in the rut it is now. We have a lot of work
              to do, but as early as now, brava! :)
 Awww... =)
 Things are fine in Canada, although I _really_ need to find
         other Filipinos who care about the Philippines and don't go
         on and on about the Good Life here or say things like "You
         know, I was also patriotic when I was young..."
 Yeah.
 I read the "Walang Kwenta Ang Pilipinas" email that's been going around.
 I couldn't finish it because I found that it just said
              too much of the obvious and the wrong. We all know we're
              in a rut, and just writing about the rut we're in
              doesn't solve things.
 Your blog entry, though short, inspired me. Knowing that
              I have like-minded colleagues like you give me the
              strength to continue standing up for this country,
              amidst the exodus of professionals and the shit that our
              politicians just keep ramming down our throats.
 I hope you find more like-minded people there. The
              feeling of being the only one can be very discouraging.

Ka Edong of Technobiography
also wrote, “There's a lot to be done for the Philippines. We do what
we can.”

Awww. =)

I want to find other Filipinos in Toronto who are passionate about
nationbuilding and who believe we can do something even from this
distance.

I know people like that can exist outside the country. I mean, if
MIT has enough people to start MIT PESO,
why not UToronto?

A recent post on the Philippine Linux Users' Group suggested a
separate plug-emacs mailing lists for all the Emacs messages that have
popped up recently. The suggester said:

There is a
difference between discussion and stroking each other's ego. :)

Working with Emacs is a humbling experience. It brings you face to
face with accumulated centuries of developers' work. Emacs involves
people in its development to an unusual extent. Working with vi and
even Eclipse made me feel more like a user than a co-developer.
Working with Emacs made me feel part of the community, even when I was
still struggling to make sense of the parentheses.

If in that sense, Emacs worship is considered ego-stroking, then sure,
I'm guilty. I can't help but express my appreciation for one of those
things that has really changed my life and made free, open source
software really meaningful to me. For the culture, really, that made
it possible. It's a piece of software, but it's also a conversation
with so many developers around the world.

To newbies: if you're curious about the thrills of open source
development and you want a nice, easy way to get started, why not try
modifying Emacs? It's easy to pick up. All the source code is there,
and you can modify it on the fly. We've had complete non-programmers
try it out and fall in love with programming. They get thrilled when
they share their tweaks and other people respond with comments and
suggestions. This is good stuff. Try it out. =)

I suppose Emacs is off-topic. After all, it's cross-platform, not
Linux-specific. I could easily be extolling the wonders of Emacs on
Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, or BSD. Emacs doesn't require Linux.
(Neither does Apache, but you don't see people waxing lyrical about
web servers that often, do you?) The flood of Emacs-related posts that
deluge the list whenever someone unwittingly brings up the topic is
probably incomprehensible to people who've never tried Emacs or tried
Emacs as just an editor and didn't like it.

Still, I want to share what makes open source real for me. Not kernel
hacking, which is still too intimidating despite the existence of
projects like kernel-janitor. Not network or system administration,
which I don't have the patience to do. Just the free and flexible
customization of something I use everyday and the thrill of sharing
these customizations with other people in a community that spans the
world.

I guess that's why I post on PLUG instead of plug-misc. I don't think
PLUG should just be a venue for asking and answering technical
questions, but also for sharing nifty hacks and examples of how far a
Linux system can be pushed. Other people push their systems in terms
of hardware and services. I push mine in terms of how well it can fit
me, how well it can anticipate my needs.

I want to stroke other people's egos. I want people to discover how
they can contribute to free and open source software, to experience
the thrill of seeing their code out there and being used. Open source
development isn't just for PHP wizards or C freaks who can contribute
to existing projects or launch an entirely new project on their own.
Maybe—just maybe!—people who thought themselves just users of a text
editor will be inspired to think about how they can start customizing
their own.

clair ching says:

I can't help but agree with you. Emacs is the way that I
appreciated FOSS more compared to GNU/Linux per se. Why? It's because
I easily felt part of the community of Emacs users and hackers on the
Emacs Wiki. That kind of interaction makes it less scary for newbies,
IMHO. I mean, not all people on the Emacs Wiki are very friendly, I
suppose, but the ones I have interacted with as I was learning to use
various tools and modes available showed me that I can do something
for the FOSS community, which is to write about what I learn. I don't
even know ELISP but at least I know that my blog entries are helpful
to others too. =)

I guess we have been too giddy over Emacs on the PLUG mailing list
that is why someone suggested that. Well, I know I have always been
giddy about it but I can't help myself! ^_^ Emacs is wonderful…

Besides there are so many hacks in Emacs that make FOSS usage,
learning and advocacy so much fun! Like the Planner mode that allows
me to somewhat organize my life, my thoughts, my schedule. Eshell
allows me to do some things without opening a separate terminal. In
Planner, I also store my notes on advocacy and my blog entry drafts. I
also listen to music on Emacs. And when something goes wrong on
whatever mode I am using, I can email the maintainer immediately, to
tell him/her what happened so that the bug can be fixed, etc. I try to
be as detailed as possible when I do that. So I guess that is my
contribution. =)

In any case, I also enjoy the company of people using Emacs, not just
because we talk about Emacs but because I am learning so much about
you guys =)

From We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin:

“Every license for Office plus Windows in Brazil – a country in which
22 million people are starving – means we have to export 60 sacks of
soybeans,” says Marcelo D’Elia Branco, coordinator of the country’s
Free Software Project and liaison between the open source community
and the national government, now headed by president Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva. “For the right to use one copy of Office plus Windows
for one year or a year and a half, until the next upgrade, we have to
till the earth, plant, harvest, and export to the international
markets that much soy. When I explain this to farmers, they go nuts.”

Now _that’s_ a fantastic way to make the cost of software really
visible to people. Translate it into tangible stuff!

“The importance of seduction and curiosity” is another great entry from one of my favorite blogs, Creating Passionate Users. Kathy Sierra writes:

Part of creating passionate users starts with building curiosity. Inspire them to want to learn, know, and do more.

I love making people curious about things, whether it's Emacs,
Planner, computer science, or even far-out stuff like street
performance.

Kathy Sierra gives these tips:

1. Be passionately curious yourself.
2. Be seductive.
3. Make them curious by doing something unusual, without an obvious explanation.
4. Offer a puzzle or interesting question… without giving them the solution.

Be passionately curious yourself. Heck yeah. I love learning
about things. When people give me feedback on my talk, the first thing
that usually comes to their mind is my enthusiasm for the topic. Even
when I can't go into a lot of detail about something like Squeak, they
pick up on the fact that I think it's really interesting and something
worth being curious about.

Be seductive. I often do my Planner help that way when the
person I'm talking to expresses interest in learning Lisp. I'll take
them partway to a solution and leave enough for them to figure things
out. Even with the hacks we put together for Planner, there's always
that tantalizing glimpse of what _else_ could be possible.

Make them curious by doing something unusual, without an obvious
explanation. This is why I've taken to starting my Knoppix
presentations with a Windows display. ;)

Offer a puzzle or interesting question… without giving them the
solution. Oooh, still have to figure out how to do this one
properly.

Fun.

http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=31491

Filipino software developer wins IBM Linux Scholar tilt

Posted 00:33am (Mla time) Mar 24, 2005
By Erwin Lemuel Oliva
INQ7.net

FILIPINO software development talent shines once again.

Jan Stevens Ancajas, a student of the Mindanao State University-Iligan
Institute of Technology, was among the grand prizewinners of the 2004
IBM Linux Scholars Challenge, INQ7.net learned Wednesday.

Ancajas was among 20 winners from all over the world in the yearly
challenge hosted by the computer giant IBM.

The Filipino developer's program entry described as “Dynamic DNS
solution for a campus network” was cited as one of the best software
programs developed by a student.

This IBM-hosted contest solicits entries from students all over the
world. Each winner will receive an IBM ThinkPad T-Series with Linux
and will also have the opportunity to qualify for one of the three
Summer 2005 internships at the IBM Linux Technology Center.

Wow! =D Congrats!

(Oooooh, envious…)

E-Mail from Miguel A. Paraz

I will be home in a month!

I am overflowing with ideas I want to share with people, and I’m
planning to go to different places in the Philippines in order to do
open source and computer science advocacy.

• I want to show people that you can be passionate and enthusiastic
  about computing, and you can share what you know even if you’re just
  talking about simple things.
• I want to help start geek communities so that people know who’s
  working on what. It’s important for people to know whom they can ask
  for help.
• I want to find out what issues teachers face in other schools and
  how teachers deal with those issues. I hope to share thoughts on
  teaching introductory computer science and making computer science
  fun and interesting for university students as well as elementary
  students.
• I want teams from the provinces to perform better in national
  programming competitions.
• I want to help show people that they can do funky computing stuff in
  the provinces so that they’re not always envious of Metro Manila and
  its high concentration of geeks. ;) I want students to be able to
  consider their local colleges seriously. I want to encourage people
  to hold their own technical sessions and regular meetings.
• I want to show people that computer science isn’t just about money.
  It helps you learn how to think, and that makes it really useful.

I don’t need to speak to large audiences, although I can do that if
I’m part of a larger event. If I spoke in front of a large audience
all day, I’d bore them—better to reserve that for smaller audiences
so that I can adapt to people better. I don’t need a grand event. I
just need to be there, meeting people, asking questions, exchanging
ideas…

I can start with a small thing. I can talk about computing on XTs if
that’s all they have. I can assume zero background on Linux or even
computing if necessary. It’s just that I’m mobile (aka unemployed) in
a position to do something cool, and I can’t let the opportunity pass.

Summertime would be best. That would mean I’d have to raise PHP 10k
for airfare or so. There’s a Cebu Pacific Air thing running until
March 15, but I won’t get to talk to teachers and students then, so it
might be better to spend that time with my family, use all March to
prepare really good presentations, and head off during April so that I
can talk to lots of people.